Summary: Clark and Lex play a game. Clark needs to start his day; Lex won't let him go.

"Queen to F5," Clark mumbled through a mouthful of toothpaste, ear and shoulder pressed into the kitchen cordless. Which was now in the bathroom. But, hey, wasn't that the whole point of cordless? He spat into the sink, rinsed.

"A rather bold move, Clark, but futile," Lex said on the other end.

"Nuh uh. Look at the board, Lex." He peered at his teeth in the mirror, started flossing. A few seconds passed, and Clark couldn't even hear Lex breathe. "Hey, you still there?"

Very quietly, Lex said, "That's a mate."

"Yeah." Clark unbuttoned his shirt, switched the cordless to the other side. "Are you mad?" He turned on the tub, switched to 'shower' and waited for the hot water to arrive.

"You don't have a board set up there, do you?"

Maybe he should say that he did, but he'd promised himself that he'd always tell Lex the truth in the little things. "No. I just...kind of see it in my head."

He set the phone down on the vanity for a quick second, pulled his t-shirt off and picked up the phone again. Lex couldn't see him, but maybe he'd hear something...off...if he supersped the clothes removal thing.

"Clark, what's your rating?"

"Uh...PG-13?" he said, unbuckling.

"Very funny, smart ass." Clark could almost feel the grin. "You know I meant your chess rating." Lex paused, continued. "I've played this game in tournaments, club rooms and park benches from New York to Singapore, and I've yet to see someone play with the skill that you have today, Clark." Another pause, and Clark could feel the grin retracting and a grimness replace it. "You've thrown all our other games. I can see that now. What I'd like to know is why."

Clark just stood there in his boxers, the shower spray cooling behind the curtain. He reached in and turned the water off. Just a friendly game, Lex said. And he thought he could do it for real just this once. He'd wanted to talk to him, looked forward to the morning chats after chores but before school. Shame and panic cascaded down his spine, and it was only 7:30 a.m.

Guess he got a jumpstart on 'Clark is a dork and a dickwad' for the day.

"I...I didn't want to hurt you, Lex. I'm sorry."

Lex laughed, true and freeing. Clark almost sank back against the misted tile in relief. "If I can't face a true adversary across the board, Clark, I might as well hand in my resignation now and apply for a job at the Granville Mall."

"Then I'd just show up at your doorstep and take your cookie jar as revenge and payment."

"If I'm too old to get my hand slapped for sticking it in the cookie jar, you should be too old to even want it."

"Oh, I'd want it, Clark. It's the principle of the thing."

And there they were, chattering away as if nothing had happened. As if Lex were just as desperate to get things back to normal. Normal for them, anyway. He shifted one foot to another on the bathroom rug. Reached back inside the curtain, turned the shower back on.

"Oh, so you'd just come over to my house and take my cookie jar? It's not even mine, you evil fiend, it's my mom's!" He stripped away the boxers. He had like two seconds left to take a shower before said mom started yelling up the stairs.

"In this hypothetical situation, exact ownership hardly matters. After all, you did get me fired."

"Oh, so you think you can just take it?"

"I always take what I want, Clark." A very Lex Luthor statement. How to Rule the World in Ten Easy Steps. But then he amended, softly, "Almost."

"Almost, Lex?"

"I'd like to think, just once, that I could wait for it to be given to me," Lex said.

Okay, here he was, bare-butt naked talking about cookie jars and then somehow not. What Clark should have done was say, 'Shower. Gotta go now, bye!' and hung up. But instead, he said, "I'd give you the jar, Lex. You know, if it's that important."

Lex said nothing beyond a soft hum, and then, "Now it would depend, Clark, on what kind of cookies it contained."

"See, that's the thing, Lex," Clark said, reaching in and feeling the spray. This conversation was going to drain the entire holding tank. And if that happened, he was so grounded. Responsibility and guilt and blah and 'gotta go now, bye!' did not come out of his mouth. "The jar's empty. I ate all the cookies. Still want it?"

"Why, Clark Kent, who ever thought such a streak of selfishness and greed could lie within you?" Lex sounded rather pleased.

He didn't want to hang up. He could just stand there naked and grody, let the bus leave without him. Again. Blow off school. Maybe surprise Lex by showing up at the plant, make him take the day off and then they could go to Mrs. Fields in Granville for real. Steal all the free samples and no one's cookie jar would get hurt in the process.

And from down the hallway and stairs, Clark also heard, "Clark Jerome Kent, if you don't get out of that shower now, you'll miss the bus!" Uh oh. His name couldn't get any longer or fuller than that. Big trouble. "And I will not call the school office with another excuse for you!"

He put his hand over the mouthpiece and shouted, "Mom! Come on, give me a break!"

Taking his hand away, he whispered into the phone, "Lex, I gotta go!"

"I will not give you a break, young man! Get down here now!"

"Lex..."

"Clark Jerome Kent, are you on the phone?!?"

"Mom!"

From the phone, he heard, "Clark, we need to finish this conversation. Just turn the phone to 'hands free' and get in your shower."

"I can't talk to you from the shower!"

"Why not?"

"Because I'm..."

"Because you're what?"

Naked. Very naked. And in the shower he'd be, don't know, more naked.

He heard a sigh. "I'm getting dressed for work myself, Clark. It's not like I can see you."

No longer down the stairs but right outside the door, "Clark, hurry up!"

"Mom, give me five minutes!"

"I'll set the timer, don't think I won't!"

Yeesh. She so would. "Okay. Thanks!"

And then he checked the phone to see if there was a 'hands free' or 'speaker' option. Hey, what do you know, there was. He set the phone down on the vanity and stepped inside the shower. The barely warm shower. The tepid shower. Yeah, this was going to be quick. "Can you hear me?"

"Not quite crystal, but yes. Are you in the shower?"

"Yep. Soaping up as we speak." Which was true. He'd already passed the pits and had started heading for the groin. Important areas. The manly areas. And okay, some mornings he spent a little more time on the groin than was absolutely necessary. But a guy was allowed a break. And, hey, shower. And he was not thinking that right now, he was not thinking that. And he so was. Stupid body.

Lex said nothing. And then nothing again. More nothing.

Leaning against the tile, trying to be quiet and talk at the same time, he said, "Lex, you still there?"

"Yes, Clark, I'm still here."

"I thought I lost you there for a second."

"No, you have me, Clark," he said softly, "You have me."

His hand hadn't moved from his manly...okay, dick. Maybe he couldn't say it, but he could think it. Dick. Ha. Again. Dick.

Lex was on the phone, his mom was down the hall putting laundry away, and he was jerking off in the shower for no apparent reason. Make it quick, God, make it quick...And he made a noise. A little one. No no no no no...

Lex and chess and cookie jars somehow got him in the shower with his hand pumping his dick. Freak. He was a grade-A freak. A fifteen-year old freak, fine, but a freak all the same. A whimpering freak. Great. Put the washcloth in your mouth and bite on it, stupidhead.

Thank you thank you thank you. There is a God who answers, who smiles and looks the other way when fifteen-year old alien freaks jerk off in the shower.

His eyelids fluttered closed and the slideshow of images flew by: Lana, at the Talon, leaning over the counter; Chloe, having dropped a pen, crawling underneath her desk at the Torch; Lex, turning with a smile as Clark walks into his office...

Oh. My. God. And ow, because he bit through the washcloth and into his tongue and came reallyreallyreally hard.

And from the vanity, he heard a faraway sound that, well, sounded kind of...the same.

"Lex?!?" Actually, it sounded more like 'Yethk?!?' because washcloth and tongue biting, and ow, do not for articulateness make.

"Yes, Clark?" And Lex sounded perfectly controlled, distant but walking closer. An obvious, but cultured, sip of what had to be coffee. "Did I leave you alone for too long?"

Clark was too young to be this paranoid. Seriously. Lex hadn't heard. And Lex certainly hadn't...

"I bith my toungthe, Yethk." Just a quick rinse and a hurried turn of the handle, and Clark was picking up the phone and toweling off.

"And how, exactly, did you accomplish this marvelous feat in the shower, Clark?" Lex sounded just a little bit breathy for being amused.

"Because I'm a dork and a half that does stupid things like that?" he said while picking up his discarded clothes and throwing them in the hamper.

"A dork and a half that happens to be an undiscovered master class chess player." Lex laughed. Something metallic clinked on the other end. Cufflinks, the watch, maybe both. Lex let him play with the cufflinks once. He'd asked why. 'Because they're fun!' Clark had answered. He couldn't come up with a better reason than that. How could he explain how they felt, cool and warm at the same time, in his palm?

He wasn't a dork and a half. He was a dork and three-quarters, at least.

His mom glared at him, six inches away from the door, as he stepped out into the hall with one hand on the towel and one on the phone. Busted.

He gave her a shrug and a grin as he disappeared into his room.

"Need I remind you that you just bested me, Clark? For my ego's sake, please, let me talk you up."

Zipping up his jeans, he said, "Yeah, well if I do that, next thing I know, you'll have me on Letterman doing 'Stupid Human Tricks'."

Oh shit. His brain, he can say 'shit' in it if he wants. Shit. Bad idea. Badbadbadbadbad. Rewind and erase that. Turn back time. Okay, he hadn't quite figured that one out.

"I'm sorry, Clark," Lex said. "I think I'll keep you to myself for a while yet. I wouldn't want to let the news of my defeat become public knowledge."

"And if I defeat you again?" Clark laced up his boots.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." One sip of coffee. Another.

"Until then...gotta go."

"Yes, me too. The Lamborghini can only do 140 around the turns."

And they'd just talked for like forty minutes, played a game of chess and Clark did, well, other stuff which he would never admit to. Ever. Pain of death. But he still said, "See you this afternoon?"

"I have a conference call at three, but I can take that at home."

"Is that a yes?" Clark said as he ran, human time, down the stairs.

"Yes, Clark. As if I'd rather do anything else."

Grin. He was grinning. Stop it. Because Dad, waiting in the kitchen, with the frowning. "Okay. Bye," he said.

"Goodbye, Clark." And Lex hung up.

"Clark, son, maybe we need to talk..."

Uh oh. "Can't it wait?" Clark said as he put the phone back in the charger. "I'm late."

"Exactly, son. That's why..."

Clark could hear the bus rumbling down the road. "Bus!" he said. Oh happy, happy bus. The bus of many excuses. "Later!" he said as he scooped up his backpack and ran out the door.

He could have made the bus, but he didn't feel like sitting and being ordinary. Not this morning. Not today. The corn was oh so very tall as he sped into it, all silk and husk and bending. He risked a whoop in the middle of Johnson's field, big enough so the jays startled and the clouds floated away.